Strictly stars Karen Hauer & Gorka Marquez and their scintillating cast return with Firedance, featuring fresh flavours and super-charged choreography in a tour that includes Guildford’s G Live and Oxford’s New Theatre

“This is our third year doing Firedance,” says Karen, “and of course the first year we only got six shows in before it got stopped by the pandemic, so it still feels very new and exciting! It’s a show that is fresh, it’s sexy and it’s just a celebration! We have all the dances that the audiences love, like our tangos, our sambas and our salsas, so it just celebrates all the fun we have together as a friendship and everything we love to share with people. We just love dancing together so much, so we’re bringing that joy out onto the stage for everyone to have fun with us!”

Born in Venezuela and having grown up in New York from the age of 10, Karen Hauer is the longest serving professional dancer on BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing. Joining the series in 2012 she has been partnered with household names including J Westlife’s Nicky Byrne, The “Hairy Biker” Dave Myers, Mark Wright, Jeremy Vine, Will Young and chef Simon Rimmer. In 2018 she reached the quarter-finals with actor Charles Venn and went a step further in 2019, taking comedian Chris Ramsey to the semi-final. In 2020 Karen reached her second final when she partnered with Made in Chelsea’s Jamie Laing and in 2021 was paired with Greg Wise. For this latest series, Karen is dancing with actress, comedian and podcaster Jayde Adams.

Gorka’s flair for dancing started from a very young age. Originally from Bilbao, Spain, aged 11 he attended Ballroom and Latin dance classes where he quickly excelled and became one of the top dancers representing Spain performing across the globe.

“I think people can be used to seeing us doing ballroom dancing on TV, but that is also a style that is meant to let us showcase ourselves, to express things and to interpret the way we feel things, not just the music, but whatever has happened to us throughout the year, we channel that into the dancing.

“I think this show is going to be even more epic than it was before, to be honest. The production and the fire in particular was always hugely important to us, so like the music and the dancing, we really wanted to make sure that the other aspects of the show like that were stepped up another gear too. It all has to complement each other, so what we have in store this time around is just incredible.”

“I think this show is going to be even more epic than it was before.”